An Optimization Model for Disease Intervention

Speaker: Professor Sahotra Sarkar Venue: Room 305, Samuels building, UNSW upper campus, Randwick Date: Thursday 3 April 2014 Time: 12-1pm Enquiries: [email protected] Parking: Level 5 of the parking station; enter via Gate 11 Botany St, Randwick

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SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY Dr. Sahotra Sarkar is a Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned a BA from Columbia University, and a MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. He was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (1996 -1997), the Dibner Institute for the History of Science (1993 -1994), and the Edelstein Centre for the Philosophy of Science (1992). He was a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (1997 - 1998, 2002 -2003) and taught at McGill University before moving to Texas. He is a specialist in the history and philosophy of science with particular interests in both philosophy of biology and physics. He is the author of Genetics and Reductionism: A Primer ; (Cambridge, 1998) and J.B.S. Haldane--A Scientific Biography (Oxford, forthcoming); editor of several books, including The Philosophy and History of Molecular Biology (1996), the six- volume Science and the Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Basic Works of Logical Empiricism (1996) and the two-volume The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia (forthcoming); and author of several dozen articles in both philosophical and scientific journals. His teaching and research also encompass mathematical logic, environmental ethics, aesthetics, and Marx. He serves on the editorial boards of BioScience and Evolutionary Theory.

ABSTRACT For many diseases a variety of interventions are available for the control of morbidity and mortality. An optimal intervention strategy is one which simultaneously attempts to achieve cost-effectiveness and decrease of disease burden. A strategy typically involves only one type of intervention though, on occasion, multiple types are simultaneously used. This

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analysis develops a method to find optimal interventions with no restriction on the number and type of interventions. The framework is applied to data on malaria from Nigeria.

Next seminar 10 April, Room 305 of Samuels Building Speaker: Professor Guy Marks Topic: TBA

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